Ninth Grade Academy Feature: Team Expedition

Marina Belloil ‘19 and Megan Ferguson ‘19: Romeo High School’s new addition towards a better learning environment carries many exciting results. Prioritizing learning, the Ninth Grade Academy aims to prepare students for a desired career path by separating the incoming freshmen class into three teams: Team Expedition, Team Discovery, and Team Quest. Team Expedition consists of the four core teachers, Mrs. Cubitt, Ms. Blaska, Mr. Taubitz, and Mr. Mathis.

To prepare for the new school year, each team of teachers received summer homework to prepare for the new learning style.

“We were here for days, getting assemblies organized, getting the lessons dolled out between the four core subjects,” Mr. Mathis, English teacher from team Expedition, said.

While preparing for the students arrival, the teachers learned the skills and techniques to further their teaching abilities.

“Some teachers are covering stuff for everyone so when we cover email etiquette that’s for emailing all the teachers when math covers technology that’s for all of your classes, so it was coordinating who was going to do what and when they were going to do it,” Mathis said.

The new bond between the teachers brings them closer in a way that helps to advance their teaching skills.

“There’s a lot more communication between the teachers [and] we work together to make lessons that build off of each other,” Mathis said. “I know I am constantly referencing things they learned in other classes.”

The communication between the group of teachers not only benefits teacher’s lesson plans, but also the one-on-one relationships between their students.

“It changes how I interact with other teachers and how we interact with other kids in our lessons,” Mathis said. “[We] teach [the students] how to be people. So we are talking about email skills, how to read emotions, how to take notes, how to talk to your teacher [and] teaching them how to interact with other people and the understanding of how high school works”.

The results continue to grow and Mr. Mathis holds a great feeling about the school year and the progress for the future.